User talk:Jmjimmy
Hi, welcome to the Dragon Age Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the Forum:Can't open locked chests as mage!! page. I hope that you will stick around and continue to help us improve the wiki. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- Tierrie (Talk) 00:05, 20 January 2010 Mad Hermit Hi Jmjimmy, Would you be so kind to explain why did you trash the entire walkthrough and more of the Mad Hermit page? There's no mention of the edit on the discussion page and I feel that the text was quite acurate, comprehensive and helpful. Did you do it on purpose or it was just a mistake? Veshialle 07:34, February 10, 2010 (UTC) Never mind. Someone pointed me out that the notes are still there under the spoiller banner. What's weird is that I don't remember ever before having to click on the banner to read such notes. BTW, sorry if I wrote this on the wrong place. I've been visiting the Wiki for over a month, but I just created an account and I am still getting familiar with the process. Thank you! Veshialle 08:01, February 10, 2010 (UTC) :No worries! The old spoiler warnings are being replaced by so that people can still glance through a page without worrying that they'll read a spoiler (or click any one and they all reveal the text until you choose to hide it again). Jmjimmy 05:12, February 11, 2010 (UTC) Conversation Options I noticed you are adding Conversation Options, I did a simplified version of what you done Here. You maybe interested with it, to make it look a little cleaner (or another way if you like), so we don't get a clean up tags on the articles. This is just an fyi, in hopes of assisting you and the respective articles. 18:52, January 24, 2010 (UTC) :Hey Hollowness, thanks for that. I'm not sure if that will work for the more extensive conversations but it definitely is cleaner. I think I'd like to get them in first and clean them up after. (ie: hopefully the "crowd" can give me a hand :) Jmjimmy 19:45, January 24, 2010 (UTC) ::Actually better yet now that the articles are being over run by dialogue, it is better to move them to Morrigan's Dialogue, Alistair's Dialogue etc. It is far more appropriate there. 19:59, January 24, 2010 (UTC) :::Yeah, I was thinking about that option. It doesn't quite fit there as well since those are passive conversations. The other problem is that there would be a lot of description that would need to be added as to when and where these conversations can be had. This is why I thought of putting them in the corresponding location. If you have a better idea, even splitting each section of dialogue off and simply linking to it from the location's walkthrough section maybe? Jmjimmy 20:04, January 24, 2010 (UTC) ::::The article is named 'dialogue' not 'passive dialigue', just no one has added Companion and Warden Dialogue till now. I moved it accordingly (double check make sure I didn't miss any), see if it satisfies you, if you plan to go the distance with all dialogue options, I recommend make these pages your new home. 20:19, January 24, 2010 (UTC) :::::Oh, and if you want to, you can link the Dialogue on the respected pages (Ostagar, Deep in the Wilds, Lothering) to the Dialogue article if applicable, so people know its available. 20:25, January 24, 2010 (UTC) ::::::I just wanted to let you know what a GREAT job you are doing, this is a major task (I was planning on taking up, if no one else did but you did so OMG thanks :D). I know that you are putting a lot of time and effort into this project and I'd like to give you props and if I can help or assist you out in anyway let me know. Have a great day :D 20:06, January 26, 2010 (UTC) :::::::No problem, I'm just documenting what info I can find, there's still a lot missing (like Wynne, Zevran, non-Human Noble specifics, and the triggers for Sten's further conversations) Jmjimmy 21:40, January 26, 2010 (UTC) Alistair's Dialogue First, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU for taking on the task of recording all the significant (in terms of approval change) coversation options in a game with a very complex dialogue tree. I'd like to help you, but before I myself make any changes/additions, I first need to record the exacting wording and approval changes for some specific conversations. Even before that however, I had some questions on the format you wanted to use for some specific situations. How do you want to indicate if a dialogue choice depends on a choice made in a previous, but seperate, conversation? For example, when you first meet Alistair you have the option of asking him about his tiff with the mage. If you *don't*, you have the chance for further approval gain/loss in subsequent conversations before entering the Wilds. Specifically, if you select "Tell me about yourself.", you get a very different response than if you had previously asked him about the mage - he quizzes you about your background first, specifically asking if you wanted to join the Grey Wardens. This leads to a gamut of choices that can raise, lower, or not affect his approval. Do you want to just indicate this with a parenthetical statement such as: *Tell me about yourself. (And you did not ask about argument w/ mage in earlier conversation) **Choice one. (+ Approval) **Choice two. (- Approval) **etc. ? Then there's also the question of how to approach conversations where the character (in this case Alistair) is not the one you initiated conversation with. For example, while going over the plans for the Tower of Ishal with Duncan, you have the option of selecting something like "I agree with Alistair." which nets you a +1 approval bump. Do you just want to exclude them? Or perhaps include them as if they were initiated with the character in question? After all, there are group conversations like this were each party member has significant talk time. A few other notes: *Deep in the Wilds: In all my games so far, I have gotten +4 approval from *both* Alistair and Morrigan, so while there may be some dialog options that conflict, it is certainly possible to get approval from both characters at this juncture. *Lothering: You don't *need* to give the Small Carved Statuette in order to get these conversation topics - it seems to depend more on approval rating in general. *Camp: Again, I think this conversation merely checks on approval rating, and the people he asks about depend on who is in the camp at the time. I *know* he can ask about Zevran. He doesn't seem to ever ask about Shale/Dog/Wynn. I don't know about Oghren. I probably won't be making any additions/corrections until I hear back from you. Thanks again! Nebuchadrezzar 16:06, January 25, 2010 (UTC) :Hey Nebuchadrezzar, thanks for the note - feel free to edit as you wish. The format I chose was to only specify the optimal route through the conversation. There are many iterations and complexities that can't be covered in this format. There is a guide that I used when first going through the game that covers many (but not all) of these in more detail so I wasn't going to duplicate it, more use the knowledge I gained from it (along with a couple corrections) to create a simple walkthrough. As you pointed out, approval rating is what is important to trigger certain conversations - but rather than use specific numbers (which are hard to determine on consoles) I added the simplest way to gain the extra approval needed to get to the needed approval rating. I handled dialogue loops in one of two ways: where order was important (ie: one set of dialogue opened up another) I simply continued the indent so the tree flows. Where the dialogue simply ends and loops back to an earlier dialogue set I would indent the same as the original dialogue. Example: 1. x leads to A which opens up z 2. y 3. z (doesn't appear until conversation A has been had) *x **A ***z *y If you have corrections or improvements please feel free to add them. I'll paste a copy of the original guide I used in your talk page. Jmjimmy 17:00, January 25, 2010 (UTC) Shale's Dialogue Voxon e 19:48, January 26, 2010 (UTC) I'll admit that my format was a bit complicated. It was an attempt (a poor one, apparently) to better show options and causality in the dialogue choices. Dialogue choices boil down to two types, XOR type, where only one option can be picked, and OR type, where you can choose more than one option from the list. Knowing that, I arranged the conversation options like this. For the XOR type decision (Option 1) || (Option 2) || (Option 3) The next dialogue option was indented *(XOR Option 1) || (XOR Option 2) || (XOR Option 3) ** (Next Option 1) || (Next Option 2) || (Next Option 3) For the OR type decision, choices were indented to the same level. * (OR Option 1) * (OR Option 2) An OR choice that led to a new dialogue option would be shown as * (OR Option 1) ** (Next Option 1) * (OR Option 2 With this format you can combine the XOR and OR conversations * (OR Option 1) ** (Next Option 1) * (XOR Option 2) || (XOR Option 3) ** (Next Option 2) This would mean that by choosing Option 1 the next choices displayed would be Next Option 1, XOR Option 2, XOR Option 3 If XOR Option 2 or XOR Option 3 were picked first, then OR Option 1 would be lost, and the conversation would proceed to Next Option 2 Here's an example of a combination XOR/OR options for Shale's Dialogue *1. How did you end up in Honnleath? Do you remember? **1.2 I though you would have enjoyed hurting humans. **1.3 But why were you out in front the tower ***1.3.1 His wife? ****1.3.1.1 How does one shrink a golem? **1.4 You don't like this Wilheim, I take it ***1.4.1 Not really. It was quite a bargain. || Wilheim's wife sold it, I believe. || Oh, yes. A fortune in fact. **1.5 Do you remember anything before Honnleath? ***1.5.1 Just how old are you exactly? **1.6 Interesting. I'm done asking about that. 1.x are all OR options so choosing one of these has no effect on being able to choose any of the other options. However, in 1.4.1 only one of the three choices can be picked before the conversation goes back to the 1.x level. Shale's dialogue tree is very simple when compared to Alistairs or Morrigans. But using this format, with some explanations when needed, I think it would be possible to map out complete conversation trees regardless of complexity. :I found it very confusing to read and couldn't make sense of half of it. There's also the problem of looping dialogue which doesn't get taken into account. Cases where you can follow different dialogue trees and it loops back to different points along the tree. :I updated Shale's dialogue again to be more complete and appear more as it would in game (numbered). I think it makes it a little clearer. I included arrows as to which dialogue options are best to choose and numbered some where the order was important. There are some "Conditional appearance" options that I'm not sure what the specific condition is but based on the guide (see previous talk) the conditions do exsist (note: I wasn't sure where the Race specific dialogue you added fit in - everything I have is based on Human Noble) :I think the reality is that the "X method in the guide is the best for completeness and a show/hide tree mechanism would be ideal but a lot of work to implement. I haven't left any commentary on the Zevran Aranai page. As a matter of fact, I was deleting someone else's commentary. I found that their "Oops" is not needed any more than my commentary from two days ago. If you insist on changing it and adding it back then explain why, please. :Hey, sorry about that, it seems the email coming from Wikia seems to be quite delayed, the compare page I received showed the oops being added back in as the last change - I was attempting to remove it as well. I reworded and formatted it - the oops is gone :) Jmjimmy 19:30, February 7, 2010 (UTC) Template Void The usage of ns:0 is indeed useful in the case of a template void - inclusion of a template OR null - so that it doesn't bug out on an EOF. The case in question here is a variable, not a template. Syntactically the difference is between 2 curly braces indicating a template, and 3 curly braces, indicating a variable. This should clarify it. -- 09:06, February 8, 2010 (UTC) Category: Vendor Trash Hi, I noticed you added the category Vendor Trash to a bunch of items. I feel like the name of this category was somewhat subjective and arbitary. I'd like to suggest asking in the forums for some suggestions before creating a category. However, I like that you were trying to do some cleanup in that sense and would like to encourage you to keep it up. Cheers! -- 20:08, February 8, 2010 (UTC) :Heh, I was thinking the same thing this morning - a simple change might be "Junk" since that's what the game uses Jmjimmy 20:31, February 8, 2010 (UTC) :!User:Tierrie PS: I think you maybe under the mistaken impression that I created the "Vendor Trash" category - I merely added a couple items to an existing category. Jmjimmy 20:59, February 8, 2010 (UTC) ::@Jmjimmy, mea culpa. I apologize for the assumption. And bee tea dub, Junkn would make a lot more sense to me.-- 21:05, February 8, 2010 (UTC) Vandal Thanks for the heads up about the vandal the other day. Unfortunately I wasn't around to do anything on the spot, but I have now checked the contributions of the user in question and it seems their vandalism was limited to the Zevran example you spotted. It always pays to be safe though. 18:45, February 10, 2010 (UTC) Since this is up your alley Forum:Approval, it looks like admins' want a new approval/disapproval templates, it is being discussed in the forums. I thought you like to give your input on this since you work with approval/disapproval so much :D 06:35, February 11, 2010 (UTC) Install Extensions.. Welcome to the wiki. :) If you want an extension installed you have to ask JoePlay. He is a wiki.com staff member. Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 02:35, February 12, 2010 (UTC) :Sweet, thanks for that. Jmjimmy 03:36, February 12, 2010 (UTC) ::ArrayExtension is now installed. JoePlay (talk) 18:48, February 12, 2010 (UTC) :::Not only are you awesome, you're fast too! Thanks!!! Jmjimmy 19:16, February 12, 2010 (UTC) Testing. You should really test in a sand box if you could. Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 20:54, February 12, 2010 (UTC) :Yeah, wasn't sure how to do user templates (do now) - anyway, reverted immediately as I made a mistake in the code (nested if), fixing it now. Jmjimmy 21:00, February 12, 2010 (UTC) ColorNegativeStat I'm not sure if we are keeping these or not. the other template I think is better for use since it's one character instead of a whole line for the approval template. What do you think? Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 04:27, February 15, 2010 (UTC) :Either one is fine imho. Since it's pretty much being completely replaced in the user side with the Approval template and is only used inside Approval or ColorApproval it's not really worth changing. Especially since it'll take a while to convert all current approval data over to the new. I really think would be perfect for the hearts though. But as I say, either way is fine by me. Jmjimmy 04:34, February 15, 2010 (UTC) Me too, just leave it for now, until we get someone here that get's to make decisions. I want Template:+ to be like this User:Polexian/+ but who know's. Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 04:41, February 15, 2010 (UTC) Approval I have moved everything over and it looks great. I added the and . I hope you don't mind. I couldn't help myself. Polexian[[User_talk:Polexian| ♦♦Talk♦♦]][http://dragonage.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Polexian&action=edit&section=new ♠♠Leave Message♠♠] 21:56, February 16, 2010 (UTC) :Don't mind at all, feel free to edit it at will. Jmjimmy 22:13, February 16, 2010 (UTC) The Golem See if using paragraphs will be better than using the table. -- 03:31, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :Sorry for editing in the wrong tab. Here's the sandbox: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/User:Jmjimmy/Sandbox I'll mock up the paragraph as well. Jmjimmy 03:36, February 18, 2010 (UTC) Template Category I see that you're working on a way of entering a list of categories. For the sake of simplicity, I think its better that we stick to using multiple entries instead of a delimited category template. If this isn't what you're working on, then just ignore me and I'll be on my merry way. -- 22:55, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :I'm trying to wrap my head around the transclusion process, there's a few oddities that I don't get about the onlyinclude/includeonly tags Jmjimmy 22:57, February 18, 2010 (UTC) :ps: To save yourself some time: ignore anything I do in my namespace, I'll post in the forums if it's something I'd like to propose Jmjimmy 23:04, Febr::I might be able to help with that - the documentation might explain it. ::I might be able to help with that - the documentation might explain it. ::In a nutshell, includeonly tags hides the section from being shown in the article. But it will show up if the article is included. ::onlyinclude tag excludes the entire article when it is being included except the section ::Used together, the section is hidden when being viewed as an article but is the only thing that will show when it is being included. -- 23:08, February 18, 2010 (UTC)uary 18, 2010 (UTC) :::What I was trying to figure out is when you want to transclude something (example being a category or similar) using onlyinclude & includeonly together changes the includeonly behaviour. Example: Some text yada yada yada Category:X :::One would think that includeonly would force the category to transclude, but because of the inclusion of the onlyinclude it no longer transcludes. It's very bizarre and I can't quite figure why it's occurring (I'm sure there's a logical reason) Jmjimmy 23:16, February 18, 2010 (UTC) Approval Don't you tempt me! I'd just finished explaining to Hollowness why I was going to steer clear of the discussions on this topic and just accept the outcome, but I find it very hard to stick to resolutions not to give my opinion! But thank you for the pointer to the template: it's certainly easier to understand than the forum topic has become. My view is that getting approval info into template form is the main thing, and what the output of that template looks like is just fine detail. After all, one of the wonderful things about templates is that once they're implemented it's easy to bulk change the appearance of the information they contain! So, if you and Tierrie are happy with the way the output looks, I'll be happy (or at least will forever hold my peace). Though I'm still a bit confused about how the template should actually be used, given its versatility. I'm assuming we don't want little people icons on some pages and hearts and text on others unless there's a genuine difference in the nature of the information being presented? Anyway, don't bother answering that just now, I'm sure that's something you'll be addressing as part of the implementation stage for the new template. And hi! 00:56, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :Rather than answering you directly I'll improve the template's documentation :) As to including you, it's actually because I'm not 100% happy with the icons either - I don't think anyone is. We (for the most part) agree that it's useful and needed in some cases because it gets a lot of information across in a small space that would otherwise be very confusing (see Golem - the first iteration is confusing and the second iteration here cleans it up nicely). I'm hoping for further input from those who aren't fans of the portraits to get ideas on how we could improve the look. Jmjimmy 01:03, February 19, 2010 (UTC) Coding So I've been watching some of your updates and I've noticed your knowledge of coding and wiki. When you realized that you made a mistake you owned up to it. I'm impressed. I have a few projects that might be very well suited to your talents and I wanted to know if you'd be interested in them. You have a background in programming right? What languages do you feel comfortable working with? Python? Perl? C? Or are you primarily interested in working with the wiki and its markup? -- 20:29, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :Thank you very much for the compliment. I've taken some programming courses at the college level and at Queen's University http://www.queensu.ca but primarily am self-educated. After feeling like I hadn't learned anything in the college level courses I took a month and taught myself PHP/MySQL/JavaScript/HTML. That was ~10 years ago, I've been doing web development on and off ever since. I'm most familiar with JavaScript, PHP, & HTML and have also worked in Java, C, and a little bit of Python. Oddly enough, I am just becoming familiar with Wiki code (Template:Approval was my second template). It's how I learn best, jump into the deep end and persist. :What sort of projects are you working on? Jmjimmy 22:09, February 19, 2010 (UTC) ::I wrote some back end tools in C that parses the gff data files and convert them into xml files. Pwr905 has a bot written in Python that converts these xml files into articles. After he went back to school, I decided to write my own in Perl. These tools aren't complicated. But they require a compiler, and a good understanding of the data structures. On this end of things we need to parse the consumables and upload them to the Wiki in a standardized format. ::On the wiki end of things, I planned on starting work in a NavBox. Its underlying table needs to be like Template:InfoBox and we will derive additional NavBoxes on top of it. We will need one for Characters, Games, Items. Other stuff of that nature. So it will have to be very thorough but easy to use. This pretty much means no arrays unless you absolutely need to. Sounds interesting? -- 22:24, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :::I can say for sure I'm not interested in the compiler project unless it was paid. I learned long ago that they are no end of headaches and the work on them never really finishes until they're replaced by the next format/compiler. As to the NavBox, that I would very much be interested in helping out with. Jmjimmy 22:35, February 19, 2010 (UTC) ::::I think you misunderstood. Its not work. I was going to give you the code and let you mess around with it and do whatever you wanted. I feel very strongly about letting hobbyist just go at it. But, as it is, I think you might find the NavBox more interesting anyway. Keep in mind that its not supposed to feel like work. Think about it, and if you feel like its going to take away time from having fun, then let me know. I will enjoy doing it. But I am also realistic about the amount of time I have available. So I think my time is best spent working on more complicated projects. -- 22:52, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :::::No misunderstanding, just the only way I'd spend time on a compiler is if it *was* work :) - The NavBox is definitely interesting and something I'd like check out. It'll probably be a couple days before I can look at it though as I'm heading out of town tomorrow. Jmjimmy 23:03, February 19, 2010 (UTC) Approval Temp. Did you not see my long winded note on that article. "you may want to refrain from using the approval template for an official standard template is in the making, but I did update with the one the admins are thinking of using)". Then you and implemented it more : /. This whole approval things seems to be on hold Forum:Approval# On Hold so you prolly want to hold off on anymore adding this template to articles. 18:22, February 26, 2010 (UTC) :I did see it, that's why I updated it. See Forum:Approval. Jmjimmy 18:29, February 26, 2010 (UTC) Hi resolution Pictures. I have a freeware version of a high resolution picture software on my ftp server. All I need is your email address to email you a log on. 13:58, February 27, 2010 (UTC) :Hey Polexian, thanks for the thought, but I only have the 360/PS3 versions so all the screenshots from there end up automatically "optimizing" so they aren't very good quality for photoshoping. Jmjimmy 03:45, March 2, 2010 (UTC) My thoughts regarding your actions in the Approval discussion Given the extended debate that has gone on, and your request that you be informed if you had done something wrong I feel it would be remiss of me not to comment on how I perceived your actions. In general, I don't have a major problem with your comments. You did appear frustrated at times, but I don't think that you violated the Dragon Age Wiki: Code of Conduct when you expressed your frustration. I also appreciate that you made comments suggesting that you were willing to move forward. However, although I absolutely support moving content into a user's namespace when it clearly doesn't belong on the wiki proper, given the somewhat heated nature of the approval topic and of your past interactions with Hollowness, I think it was unwise to move templates into her namespace without discussing your reasoning with an admin or Hollowness first. So I don't see any need for official sanctions, but in the future I would encourage you to be mindful of edits made in a situation where there have been previous disputes. 13:14, February 28, 2010 (UTC) :I was definitely frustrated. I don't mind if someone doesn't like what I created, I don't invest myself that much in it, but I get very frustrated in situations where people (in general) try to stonewall while offering nothing else (either in constructive criticism or something completely different). The moving of Hollowness' templates was not my best judgment for sure, I did that out of spite which isn't appropriate here. Thanks for your comments Loleil. Jmjimmy 04:02, March 2, 2010 (UTC) Personal Info Deletion I don't think I can delete specific entries in the article history. Someone removed the phone number and that should be fine. It should be no more or less dangerous than posting your phone number on a forum. Which is to say, very dangerous. -- 23:49, March 3, 2010 (UTC)